Television is not dead, it’s here to stay – despite what the media and marketing ‘geniuses’ say

What's likely to happen is that the internet media companies who don't call themselves media companies – Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple – and have all the money in the world will over time buy up TV properties, writes Bob Hoffman

Don’t believe me? It’s right here in Ad Age in black and white, another fucking article entitled TV May Actually Die Soon. Can you believe this?

I’m just wondering how many Ad Age stories there have been over the past 15 years about TV dying?

Will they ever figure out that regardless of what the marketing and media geniuses have to say, people like television. How fucking difficult is that to understand?

As we all know, online viewing of video is ‘killing’ traditional TV. ‘Nobody’ watches live TV anymore. Everybody is watching video online.

That’s what we’ve all learned from going to conferences and listening to media, marketing and digital geniuses speak. It’s what we read in the trades and in the press every day.

Only problem is, it’s all bullshit.

A new study released by comScore shows that of households with both traditional TV and OTT (video delivered over the internet) for every hour spent with online video people spend about five and a half hours with traditional TV.

Even the top 20 per cent of online video users spend twice as much time with traditional TV.

The bottom 50 per cent of online video streamers, watch 98 per cent of their video on traditional TV.

Despite the fact that Netflix has almost as many subscribers as all cable TV companies combined, and more households have Netflix than a DVR, comScore says:

“Traditional rules the roost in terms of time spent, as OTT continues to act more as supplemental viewing.”

Then there’s this. A report by Pivotal Research Group last week said:

“Despite the significant growth in access to SVOD (subscription video On demand, e.g., Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu) services over the past few years, consumption of traditional TV programming has not been affected to the degree that many might expect…any expectations around the ‘death of TV’ because of SVOD services are likely overstated.”

Meanwhile, viewership of national news programming is surging. Once again, according to Pivotal:

“YTD viewing of all news-related programming on national media properties is now +12%.”

Last week it was up 23 per cent.

As I speculated last year, what’s likely to happen is that the internet media companies who don’t call themselves media companies – Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple – and have all the money in the world will over time buy up TV properties. This is starting to raise its head in the recent Amazon-NFL $50 million football deal.

I’m afraid we’re all going to be dead long before TV is.

Bob Hoffman has been the CEO of two independent agencies and is the author of the Ad Contrarianblog, where this article was first published

Problem is, it will diminish and quite quickly. Anyone here have young kids? Does any of them wake up early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons like we used to?

Nope. and thats the problem.

No one else has figured out digital and when the time comes to figure it out, it’ll be too late.

We’re already seeing this when big brand CPG, in all their enlightened glory and budget, starts blasting us with unwanted pre-rolls while nimbler competitors sell outside of the Walmarts, build their brand digitally and have exclusivity on their customers.

Give me one example of one brand that has been built purely digitally.

It’s just a hoax perpetrated by people with kids who don’t watch cartoons on saturday morning. Do kids of cartoon watching age need to be targeted with adverts by the way (despicable)….we have to wait till they get on FB or Instagram where we bombard them with loads of shitty net films and hashtags.

Jeremy’s to the point in a way Bob is not:
First, his is the only mention of anything Asian in this piece. Why reprint something from a US writer that we could read anywhere? What’s so Asian about it that it’s worth running in Mumbrella Asia?
Second, his is the only mention of television in an Asian context – MediaCorp’s programming.
Mumbrella should return from its current guise as a vehicle just for agency press releases. But not using stuff like ‘ol Bob’s. Something of relevance to us here would be nice. Television does exist here you know.

Few things become completely obsolete. they just become another choice for the consumer. I work hard, I have a young child, I choose TV because, ironically, it saves me having to make any more choices. By the end of the day, I am sick of making decisions and the endless scrolling through Netflix becomes a source of frustration not relaxation. This is the same reason I am not much of a gamer, too much decision making for me, which is why the prospect of “interactive” content leaves me cold. There’s no need to be territorial about it though. If someone wants to watch TV, so be it. Netflix? Go right ahead. Wanna play Nintendo instead? Be my guest. Truth is most of us like a bit of everything at different times anyway.

“Anyone here have young kids? Does any of them wake up early on Saturday mornings to watch cartoons like we used to?”

Er, yes.

In fact, Cartoons and the news are the only things that get watched on my TV.

I do agree with above poster though that this would be a more interesting article if it had an Asian perspective. I get that Trott and Hoffman are big names and write provocative opinions, but do they represent what Mumbrella is trying to do in this region? How about less of this C&P journalism and more focus on the issues that impact us all living and working in this region?

Thanks for the feedback Jeremy, Davo and m. Our aim is always to have a great mix of local, regional and global content with the emphasis on ‘local and regional’. Sometimes we get the balance wrong but, just to add, we also receive a lot of positive comments about the inclusion of universal issues that are blind to geography and affect us all. Television’s relevance is probably one such topic.